The display, storage and manipulation of graphic images is one of the most challenging problems facing modern data processing systems. The storage and display of high resolution images require the manipulation of tremendously large amounts of data. It is also difficult to provide a user wishing access to stored images with enough information about the stored images to allow the user to select a particular image from a large number of images. Prior systems have used a combination of written description of images and other indices to indicate the nature of a particular stored image.
One approach to indexing graphic images is the use of thumbprint images. Thumbprint images are either portions of an image or a greatly reduced rendition of a graphic image. Prior art thumbprint images have been difficult to produce and manage because of the differences in the graphics formats and the difficulty in accurately representing a larger image in a smaller format.
Accordingly, a need has arisen for a graphics processing system which addresses the problems and challenges associated with prior systems for manipulating, compressing and storing graphic image data.